Windmills

[media]The magnificent roof of the Sydney Opera House is famous throughout the world for its 'sails' and for providing Sydney with such an iconic skyline. Yet long before the Opera House was built, sails of a different kind dotted the Sydney skyscape. In the late eighteenth century, and well into the nineteenth century, the tallest structures around Sydney Cove were windmills. They left few physical remains, yet their presence left a lasting legacy in early colonial landscape art and the minds and hearts of many contemporaries.

In the early days of white settlement, food shortage was a constant and pressing problem. The First Fleet landed with 40 hand-powered iron mills but they proved hard work and were generally unsatisfactory as they wore out easily. A windmill was urgently needed to grind grain for the fledgling community and numerous and regular requests for a mill to be sent out were despatched to London. Eventually, parts for a windmill were shipped out from England and arrived with Governor John Hunter in September 1795.

the windmill being nearly finished at the commencement of this month, it was tried with only two of its sails; when it ground, with one pair of stones, a bushel of wheat in ten minutes, and considering the immense weight of the wood-work, its motion was found to be easy and convenient. [1]

[media]Despite this progress and Governor Hunter's boast to the Colonial Office in London that the manpower in the colony was capable of building 'a strong substantial and well-built windmill with a stone tower, which will last for two hundred years', the mill soon fell into disrepair and from about 1810 the stone tower stood without sweeps for many years. [2] In January 1798, the construction of a second windmill commenced on the site where Clarence Street now crosses the top of Grosvenor Street. [3] Hunter's rather optimistic 200-year assertion was again dashed to pieces, together with the windmill, when a violent three-day storm ravaged Sydney in June 1799. According to David Collins,

…the weather became very tempestuous and continued for three days blowing a heavy gale from the southward, attended with a deluge of rain; by which several buildings belonging to Government, which had been erected with great labour were much damaged; among others, was unfortunately the tower of the new mill at Sydney, of which the roof was fitting. The south-side of this building was so much injured that it became necessary to take the whole down; which was done, and the foundation laid a second time. [4]

[media]The windmill was slowly repaired between 1800 and 1802 and it continued to function into the 1840s. [5] It was known as the military windmill and it was beautifully captured in Major James Taylor's watercolour 'Sydney Looking South from Flagstaff Hill' of 1821.

[media]The building of the first windmills, with their ability to grind much greater quantities of flour, was naturally hailed as an important development by the early settlers – so much so that the windmill's unmistakable form was included in one of the first emblems designed to symbolise the colony. This design featured at the top of the front page of Australia's first newspaper, the Sydney Gazette, in 1803. It represented a seated figure marked '1788' with a beehive, plants, picks and shovels, a plough, a ship, a fort, a church, a house and a windmill. Around these were the words 'Thus We Hope To Prosper'. It is clear from this that the ability to cultivate the land and produce enough food was central to the early settlers' hopes for their future and dreams of economic security; in this, windmills would play an important part.

Commercial mills

[media]As the colony developed its infrastructure, and shipping, commerce and agriculture became well established, the population grew. The demand for food (flour for bread in particular) soon meant that private windmills overtook the government ones. There was clearly much lucrative commercial gain to be made by men who had the necessary skills and capital to run milling businesses. During the early decades of the nineteenth century, windmills dotted the entire Sydney landscape, all the way from The Rocks to Parramatta. Alexander Harris sailed into Sydney during the 1820s and later recalled

a waterside town scattered wide over upland and lowland, and if it be a breezy day the merry rattling pace of its manifold windmills, here and there, perched on the high points, is no unpleasing sight. [7]

The three eastern mills

[media]Between the present location of Governor Bourke's statue outside the Mitchell Library and the present site of the Conservatorium of Music 500 metres north, there were, at times, three windmills at work. [8] These three mills on the eastern side of Sydney town were known as Boston's Mill, Palmer's Mill and Kable's Mill. John Boston, John Palmer and Henry Kable all became successful and wealthy colonial entrepreneurs. The convict artist John Eyre painted a delightful watercolour of the east side of Sydney Cove in about 1808 in which the three eastern mills can be seen – Boston's mill on the left partly hidden by trees, Palmer's in the centre on higher ground and Kable's small post mill on the right. In front of Kable's mill is the first Government House, whose site is now marked at the corner of Phillip and Bridge streets. [9][media]The painting attests to the rapid and prolific development of Sydney within the first 20 years of British colonisation.

Millers Point

Millers Point[media] was originally called Cockle Bay Point. By 1822 there were three wooden windmills erected on the high ground there, west of Sydney Cove, apparently run by a local character, Jack Leighton.[media] Known as 'Jack the Miller', he met an untimely death in 1826 when he fell, 'in a state of intoxication', from a ladder leaning against one of his mills. [10] His original mill was near today's Bettington Street, on the high ground just past Dalgety Terrace. The second mill was built on land granted to Joseph Underwood in 1817 'for the purpose of erecting a windmill thereon'. It was situated west of present day Merriman Street and was demolished in 1842 and replaced by a terrace of three houses. [media]The third windmill, in the Merriman Street area, was still standing in the 1840s on land owned by a Mr Davis. The date of its disappearance is uncertain. [11]

The Pyrmont windmill

In the first decade of the nineteenth century, the landowner and wool pioneer John Macarthur built a windmill on a very high point at Pyrmont. [12] It was built, using local stone, in the triangle formed by Church, Mill and Point streets, later the site of St Bartholomew's church. The mill was still operating in the 1810s and is marked on the 1822 map of Sydney as a lonely structure with no other buildings nearby. However by 1832 it had been deserted and its sails were broken. [13] Because of its elevation it could be seen as far away as the north shore of the harbour, from the high land around the Observatory and even from the South Head Lighthouse. It was depicted in Major James Taylor's 1823 panorama of Sydney and the convict artist Joseph Lycett's many windmill-friendly watercolour paintings of Sydney during the 1820s. [14]

The Darlinghurst mills

The most picturesque windmills of Sydney, and those whose 'poetry of motion' – 'responsive to the friendly breeze' – first greeted the new arrival by sea, were undoubtedly those which crowned the ridge at Darlinghurst. [15]

The wealthy merchant Thomas Clarkson owned the first of these mills at Darlinghurst, and there were two smaller wooden post mills nearby, very close to where Liverpool Street is now. Little is known of these mills, except that one of them was Kable's mill, which had been moved there from its former site near the Domain. In Kings Cross there were two more stone tower windmills that stood near where Roslyn Street joins Darlinghurst Road. One was owned by Thomas Barker and the other by Francois Girard. Thomas Barker was one of the wealthiest flour millers in Sydney during the 1820s and 1830s and eventually established the first steam mill in the colony at Darling Harbour. Girard was a colourful colonial character, a Frenchman transported as a convict, who soon after receiving his conditional pardon in 1825 became embroiled (together with a few other dubious bakers) in a legal scandal involving the short weighing of Sydney-made bread. This did not deter him however and by May 1826 his advertisements promised

every kind of fancy bread, of a superior quality for gentlemen's tables. N.B. French Hot Rolls at Half past 7 in the morning. [16]

Girard would later become a leading baker and coffee shop owner, ship owner, builder and pastoralist. [17]

[media]Hyndes mill (referred to as the Craigend windmill by the 1860s because of its proximity to the Craigend estate) occupied one of the highest points in the Sydney area, a rocky hill above Kings Cross roughly where Royston Place is now. For a short period, when it was leased in the 1830s to John Hill, it was also known as Hill's Mill. [media]Thomas Hyndes posted an advertisement for a stonemason to erect a tower and complete a windmill in 1825 [18] and the mill opened for business in 1829. It reached a height of 105 feet (32 metres) with sails 140 feet (42.6 metres) long. During the 1850s and 1860s its prominent position and size meant that its sails were a central feature of the Woolloomooloo landscape. [19] Frederick Charles Terry's engraving 'Sydney From the Old Point Piper Road' illustrates the sky and landscape of the area in the 1850s with the sails of Hyndes, Barker's and Girard's windmills high in the sky and visible from many miles away. [20]

Paddington and Waverley mills

Gordon's mill[media] was built in Stewart Place in Paddington about 1829. It was a large wooden post mill sitting on a circular stone base, sometimes referred to as a 'stone and post mill', and bigger than the earlier post mills. This mill is said to have been the second last of the Sydney windmills in operation, continuing until the 1870s. In the 1850s and 1860s, theatre scene painter George Roberts painted many pictures of the eastern suburbs of Sydney, and Gordon's mill features in several watercolours that are now in the Mitchell Library. [21] The storekeeper and amateur sketcher John William Hardwick also produced a watercolour showing Gordon's mill in 1853 [22]. Both paintings are testimony to the ongoing importance of the windmill in colonial daily life and also in the landscapes and skyscapes of colonial artists' imaginations.

Henry Hough[media] owned Hough's mill, which stood on the site now occupied by St Barnabas's church in Mill Hill Road, Waverley. It was a wooden post mill and operated from 1846 until 'it was levelled to the ground on October 1 1878'. [23] It was probably the last Sydney mill in existence. As with other Sydney windmills, it was captured in ink and paint by a number of artists; another watercolour by John William Hardwick shows Hough's mill in 1853 [24] and Samuel Elyard made several paintings of the windmill in the 1860s and 1870s.

Mills in writing

Colonial artists beautifully captured the windmills of Sydney in their landscape drawings and paintings. Yet other contemporaries also seemed to be enraptured by these functional and yet whimsical, pre-industrial romantic structures. In 1823, while a student at Cambridge University, William Charles Wentworth wrote a poem 'Australasia' in which he described the beauties of Sydney – the harbour, the ships, street, square and mansion, church and font and market throng – and at the climax of his description:

Windmills in Sydney would remain close to the hearts of Sydneysiders into the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1851 the Sydney MorningHerald wrote a special report on Woolloomooloo and noted that it was

perhaps, the most delightful little spot within the city boundary… A large number of the 'well to do' persons who earn their living in the learned professions, as well as in trade, have chosen this spot to enjoy the rusinurbe. The crest of the hill is studded with fine dwellings, we might call them mansions, in which almost everything that art and luxury can produce contribute to the comfort and happiness of those who are fortunate enough to reside in them. Intermixed with these houses are several windmills, materially adding to the diversity of the scenery … This is certainly a very pleasing picture to contemplate; pity it is that the prison of Darlinghurst looks frowningly on the whole scene, and reminds us that we are not yet in the promised land. [26]

Remaining traces of mills

[media]Other windmills were constructed at various times at Parramatta, Camden, Campbelltown, Liverpool and Windsor as well as further out at Picton, Mittagong and Bathurst. Yet with the march of industrial progress that characterised the mid to late nineteenth century, steam and coal power increasingly began to take over and the picturesque sails of Sydney's windmills gradually disappeared from the skyline.

[media]Today names like Millers Point, Windmill Street, Mill Hill Road and Mill Street refer to an almost forgotten and lost Sydney landscape. The last remnants of the Sydney windmills have mostly disappeared – although you can still find a few stones of one windmill under the stage at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, discovered during archaeological excavations in the 1990s. Stone from Hyndes mill, the largest mill in Darlinghurst, was later reused to build Beare's Stairs in Caldwell Street. The stone from Thomas Barker's windmill was used to build two terrace houses in Kellet Street, Kings Cross which remain today on the corner of Kellet Lane. Most importantly, however, the windmills' existence will remain forever encapsulated in the watercolours, sketches and paintings of the nineteenth century artists who drew them and left to us a lasting record of their significance to the history of Sydney.

[3] For the commencement of the building of the second windmill see David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, vol 2, ed Brian Fletcher (Sydney: AH & AW Reed, 1975, first published 1802), 37

[4] David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, vol 2, ed Brian Fletcher (Sydney: AH & AW Reed, 1975, first published 1802), 153–54

[5] There is something of a disparity in the historical records as to the exact date when the second windmill was repaired and began to work again. Governor Hunter reported it had been rebuilt and was completed in a despatch to the Colonial Office in London in September 1800. Yet in 1804 Phillip Gidley King who had arrived in the colony in 1800 to take over the Governorship claimed that on his arrival 'only one windmill was finished and at work…The tower of the second was carried only 15 ft. high…this windmill was not finished completely 'till the latter end of the year 1802'. See Hunter to J King, Enclosure no 2, 25 September 1800, in Historical Records of Australia, series 1, vol 2, 1797­­–1800 (Sydney: Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1914–25), 561; Governor King to Lord Hobart, Despatch, 1 March 1804, in Historical Records of Australia, Series 1, Volume 4, 1803–1804, (Sydney: Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1914–25), 467–68

[7] Alexander Harris, Settlers and Convicts; or Recollections of Sixteen Years Hard Labour in the Australian Backwoods, (Carlton, Vic: Melbourne University Press, 1953, first published London, 1847), 1

[20] Frederick Charles Terry was a noted Australian colonial painter, water-colourist, engraver and designer. In 1855 forty engravings from his sketches were published in The Australian Keepsake. This was in turn republished as New South Wales Illustrated, The Views of Frederick Charles Terry c. 1862 (NSW: Fine Arts Press, 1978)

[21] Works by George Roberts in the State Library of New South Wales’ pictures collection: http://acmssearch.sl.nsw.gov.au/s/search.html?collection=slnsw&meta_e=401498

[23] Norman Selfe, 'Some Notes on the Sydney Windmills', Royal Australian Historical Society Journal & Proceedings 1, part 6 (1902–3): 105. However there seems to be some uncertainty that this was indeed the correct date and estimates range from between 1873 and 1881.

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Gilchrist, Catie

Catie Gilchrist has an MA in History, The University of Glasgow, an MA in Women's History, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, The University of London and a PhD in convict history, Sydney University. Catie first joined the Dictionary as a volunteer in 2008. She is currently employed working as a research assistant on a variety of academic history projects.

Old Windmill, Government Domain c1836

Sydney Opera House

First Fleet

Fleet of eleven ships which left England in 1787 to found a penal colony in Australia. It consisted of two Royal Navy Vessels, three store ships and six convict transports which carried over 1000 convicts, marines and seamen to the colony.

The first government windmill 1797

First government windmill

The colony's first windmill, built on Observatory Hill between May 1796 and February 1797 from parts brought to Sydney by Governor Hunter in 1795. It quickly fell into disrepair and by 1810 only the stone tower remained.

Observatory Hill

Hill at the top of The Rocks, west of Sydney Cove, which is the highest point overlooking Port Jackson. With commanding views both east and west, it was the site of one of Sydney's first windmills from 1796 before being replaced with a fort in 1803. By 1849 an observatory had also been constructed which can still be visited.

Collins, David

Deputy judge advocate and secretary to the governor, who arrived on the First Fleet, was responsible for the legal establishment of the colony, and wrote the most complete account of the colony's first years.

Military windmill

The colony's second windmill, built in 1798 by the government on Church Hill at the point where Clarence and Grosvenor Street would intersect. It was destroyed in a storm in 1799, and rebuilt between 1801 and 1802. The mill continued to operate until the 1840s. It was known as the military windmill due to its proximity to the barracks.

Paramatta River Sydney Harbour c1819-21

(Mitchell Library The third government windmill in front of Fort Phillip)

Government Mill

Third government windmill which stood in front of Fort Phillip which was built for Governor King by Nathaniel Lucas. It was described as an octagonal smock mill with propellers rotating on a post to gain the best advantage from prevailing winds.

Bourke, Richard

Former soldier who was a popular early Governor of New South Wales between 1831 and 1837, he is generally considered enlightened or progressive in his reforms, especially in relation to the judicial process, the treatment of emancipists and convicts, and religion. His proclamation on 10 October 1835 was responsible for implementing the concept of terra nullius, upon which British settlement was based, and the dispossession of Aboriginal people across Australia until this was overturned in 1992.

Mitchell Library building

The Mitchell Library building was erected in 1910 to house David Scott Mitchell's collection of Australiana which he had bequeathed to the people of New South Wales. In 1942 the building was extended and incorporated the New South Wales government's Free Public Library. The Mitchell Library is part of the State Library of New South Wales.

Sydney Conservatorium of Music building

Designed by Francis Greenway as stables for the Government House that had been commissioned by Governor Macquarie in 1816, the building became the Conservatorium in 1916.

Palmer's Mill

Kable's mill

Windmill erected by Nathaniel Lucas at the Domain in 1805 and later leased for a period to Henry Kable. It was the first post mill constructed in the Sydney Cove area, and was capable of grinding more than six bushels per hour. It stood approximately where the Shakespeare Memorial statue is located in front of the Mitchell Library's main entrance.

Sydney Cove

First Government House

Residence for the first nine Governors of NSW, which was the first major building in the colony. The first permanent building in the colony, it had two storeys built of bricks and stone comprising six rooms, two cellars and a rear staircase. In front of the house was a garden where many imported plant species were grown and the first orchard planted. The Museum of Sydney, on the corner of Bridge and Phillip Streets, was built on its site.

Detail from 'Sydney in All Its Glory', a view of Sydney Cove from Dawes Point, c1817

Millers Point

Inner-city suburb on the western side of the Harbour Bridge's southern approaches. It was named for the windmills that were built on its heights, and their owner, John Leighton, known as Jack the Miller.

(This piece was created for FBi Radio's All the Best, and made possible thanks to the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority through the Rocks Windmill Project 2013.)

Underwood, Joseph

Merchant and sealing master who managed a fleet of ships over many years carrying coal and cedar from the Hunter region and trading seal skins for tea, chinaware, rice and spirits from China and Batavia.

Millers Point c1845

Macarthur, John

Soldier, entrepreneur and pastoralist who established the Australian wool industry.

Pyrmont

Peninsular inner-west suburb between Darling Harbour and Johnston's Bay. Quarried for its sandstone, it later became a heavily industrialised working-class enclave, then gentrified as industry declined.

Kings Cross

In the nineteenth century one of Sydney's most prestigious suburbs, it became home to a vibrant bohemian community and later Sydney's red light district. Named for the intersection of Darlinghurst Road, William and Victoria Streets and once called Queens Cross, the area is now a neon lit mecca for tourists and Sydneysiders.

Darlinghurst

Paddington

Inner-east residential suburb, named for the London borough, with 3,800 terrace houses built between 1860 and 1890. It was one of the earliest Sydney suburbs to be valued for its heritage buildings, many of which have been restored.

Roberts, George

Mitchell Library

Part of the State Library of New South Wales, the Mitchell Library collection is based on the bequest of David Scott Mitchell, a book collector who amassed an unequalled collection of books on Australia. The collection has continued to grow.

St Barnabas church and hall

Waverley

Eastern residential suburb named after the house of Barnett Levey (1798-1837), who named it after his favourite book by Sir Walter Scott. Situated on the highest point of Sydney's eastern suburbs, it gave its name to the surrounding municipality.

Wentworth, William Charles

Woolloomooloo

Once a desirable bayside address east of central Sydney, the area grew more congested and grimy as the wharves expanded and the boarding houses and pubs gave refuge to larrikin gangs and petty criminals. Though now bisected by freeways and rail it is slowly reclaiming its heritage and character with extensive residential development and sympathetic landscaping.

Howells' Mill Parramatta, 1849

Parramatta

Western suburb built on the land of the Burramattagal people. Sydney's second European settlement, it began as a government farm in 1788 and has many heritage listed sites. It is now the commercial hub of Greater Western Sydney.

Camden

Suburb situated on the floodplain of the Nepean River, on the traditional land of the Dharawal people. It was shaped by its landed gentry from the time of John Macarthur's original land grant in 1805, until the Macarthur family influence faded in the 1950s.

Campbelltown

Suburb on Sydney's south-western fringes which grew from a township founded in 1820 by Governor Macquarie that commemorates his wife Elizabeth's maiden name. Rural in nature until the 1960s, the suburb has since grown into a major population centre.

Liverpool

South-western suburb based around the town founded by Governor Lachlan Macquarie in 1810, which remained a satellite town of Sydney until suburban development incorporated it into the city in the mid-twentieth century.